Support your independents = means to go, purchase, order, choose and help fund operations and cashflow for people who are invested in your community. Generally that means they have a stake in the pulse of your neighborhood or downtown or county both financially and personally, buying a building, hiring people, sponsorship of the Little League team, donations to area causes. It means they contribute to your local economy by keeping a larger percentage of money in your area which then trickles into city and county funds used for public safety, services, etc, because much more of each dollar you spend stays IN the city or town rather than being diverted to a corporate office in another state, or worse, an entirely different country. It means putting a new transmission in the Smith Family Kitchen's delivery vehicle so they can continue to grow their business (or diversify as our current health crisis requires, for example), not ordering a new truck from corporate headquarters across the country. It means paying for a 2nd generation to go to college and learn skills they will bring home and use to grow and build YOUR local community, such as when farm kids return home to invest in and grow the family legacy in new and innovative ways. It means ensuring that Tom's Hardware can keep putting their name on the backs of kid's jerseys each spring when they head out to play ball. "Support of independent businesses" is an action and a choice made to benefit and strengthen the energy, passion and life which runs through the streets of a place you call home.
Shop local = well, it used to mean the same thing and in many cases still does. However lately, and this is a really essential point to grasp, many people now use it to mean they bought from a company in the zip code where they live. They might think driving 30 minutes out of town to the massive walmart which pays no town taxes, is spending locally but with most of those dollars traveling to corporate offices 1500 miles away.....well, not so much. A vastly smaller portion of every dollar spent there goes to your local area and much more goes to the upper-level manager on the opposite coast reaching their sales targets to buy a third home in Colorado to use for winter skiing. Just because you chose Costco over Sam's Club this weekend did not mean you "shopped locally", just as ordering lunch from McDonald's instead of Billy's Pizza Parlor wasn't "dining local", and swapping suggestions of which chain grocery store has bread and toilet paper vs Dollar General....well, that's not the same thing at all, just as ordering online and picking up your order curbside at BJ's isn't putting money into the local economy. There is really, a world of difference between the two sets of actions and thinking.
P.S. Your choices matter.
#independentlyowned
#familybusiness
#supportyourcommunity
